1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to a smart power management apparatus, and more particularly to a remote-controllable smart power management apparatus which leverages monitoring the status of a manual switch of an electronic device, of which the smart apparatus manages and controls the consumption of power.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various home automation technologies have been developed to allow members of a household to remotely control and manage the power consumption of electronic devices in the household. Typically, in a home automation system, a conventional power management unit is paired (connected) to one or more individual electronic devices (which a household would like to remotely control and manage its power consumption) in a manner that turns the power management unit into the main power source thereof, thus enabling the power management unit to directly control and manage all aspects of power consumption thereof. In a nutshell, such a power management unit is usually networked with and uniquely identified to a control center of the home automation system local in the home of the household, so that the power management unit can receive one or more control commands that are directed thereto from the control center. Upon receiving a control command, the power management unit may use its internal modules to perform specific power control and management functions, such as turning on or off the power supplied to a paired electronic device, or retrieving stored power consumption statistics of the paired electronic device and sending the retrieved statistics to the control center. The control center, which may be network-capable device or node such as a set-top box, is usually connected to the Internet either through a local area network (which has a gateway to the Internet) or through its own gateway to the Internet. If a household member would like to remotely turn off the power of a target in-home electronic device, such as a lamp or TV, the household member may use a custom smartphone app or a web browser for a PC to log into the control center, identify the power management unit connected to the target electronic device through the control center, and send a “powering-off” command to the power management unit through the control center, resulting in the target electronic device being remotely turned off.
When connected to an electronic device so as to control and manage the power consumption thereof, a conventional power management unit, however, may cause inconvenience to users (e.g., the aforementioned household members). More specifically, if one household member (e.g., the husband of the household) remotely turns off a target electronic device (e.g., a lamp) from work through a smartphone app for the sake of saving power, another household member (e.g., the wife of the household) who happens to come back home early and need to use the lamp but does not have convenient access to the smartphone app, may only find that she has no way to turn the lamp back on other than, e.g., calling her husband (who may happen to be in meetings all day) to remotely do so. This is because once the conventional power management unit turns off its internal switch or relay controlling the power supply to the lamp, the wife cannot, e.g., turn the knob switch of the lamp to turn on the lamp.
Some conventional power management units may be each equipped with a toggle switch, which, when pressed, can toggle the state of the internal switch or relay of the host power management unit, thus making it possible for the wife to turn on the lamp with turning the knob switch of the lamp (after the wife uses the toggle switch to turn on the internal switch or relay). However, for most users who are usually not savvy to power management apparatuses, they usually are not aware of the existence of such a toggle switch on a conventional power management unit, or do not know the toggling function of such a toggle switch even if they know the existence thereof. Indeed, for most users, learning to know the existence of such a toggle switch, let alone learning to know the function of such a toggle switch, can be an annoying and inconvenient experience, given that it would require them to go over instruction manuals or talk to someone who is savvy about power management apparatuses.
Furthermore, it is quite common that a power management unit is chosen to be installed or otherwise put in “obscure” or “hard-to-reach” places, since people do not usually view a power management unit as an aesthetically displayable item in a home or an office environment. For example, a power management unit, which may be produced in the form of rectangular cuboid like a power adapter, can be easily “hidden” somewhere behind a chest cabinet against the wall or underneath a bed or a bulky entertainment center. Under any of those or similar circumstances, even if the wife not only knows the existence of such a toggle switch but also knows full well of the intended function thereof, the wife would still be forced to awkwardly force her way—e.g. by slightly pushing chest cabinet away from the wall so as to make room for one of her arms or simply extending one of her arms beneath the bed or the bulky entertainment center—in order to reach that “hidden” power management unit so as to press its toggle switch. Thus, it is quite apparent that even if a conventional power management unit is equipped with such a toggle switch, it is still quite annoying or inconvenient for most users to be aware of the existence thereof and the function thereof, or take advantage thereof.
Therefore, there is a need to address the aforementioned dilemmas (including aforementioned possible dilemmas associated with a toggle switch) that are faced by users (such as the aforementioned wife of the household) resulting from the inability of a conventional power management unit or system—in a situation when a target electronic device paired with the conventional power management unit (such as the aforementioned lamp) has been remotely powered off through the conventional power management unit or system—to enable a human (having no convenient or ready access to, e.g., a custom smart phone app) to regain control of the powering-on or powering-off of the paired target electronic device (such as the aforementioned lamp) without imposing undue inconvenience or effort on the human.